Investing Research Articles

Do quarterly allocation updates for the Best Value and Weighted versions of the “Simple Asset Class ETF Value Strategy” (SACEVS) work as well as monthly updates? These strategies allocate funds to the following asset class exchange-traded funds (ETF) according to valuations of term, credit and equity risk premiums, or to cash if no premiums are undervalued: 3-month Treasury bills (Cash)… Keep Reading

How different are stock market performance metrics for: Capital gains only, capital gains plus dividends accrued as cash (spent or saved), and capital gains plus dividends reinvested in the stock market? Nominal versus real returns? Simple return-to-risk calculations versus Sharpe ratio? Using quarterly S&P 500 Index levels and dividends, quarterly U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data (all… Keep Reading

A subscriber asked about the lead-lag relationship between S&P 500 earnings and S&P 500 Index returns. To investigate, we relate actual aggregate S&P 500 operating and as-reported earnings to S&P 500 Index returns at both quarterly and annual frequencies. Earnings forecasts are available well in advance of returns. Actual earnings releases for a quarter occur… Keep Reading

Does quantified uncertainty in government economic policy reliably predict stock market returns? To investigate, we consider the U.S. Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) Index, created by Scott Baker, Nicholas Bloom and Steven Davis and constructed from three components: Coverage of policy-related economic uncertainty by prominent newspapers. Number of temporary federal tax code provisions set to expire in… Keep Reading

Below is a weekly summary of our research findings for 10/21/19 through 10/25/19. These summaries give you a quick snapshot of our content the past week so that you can quickly decide what’s relevant to your investing needs. Subscribers: To receive these weekly digests via email, click here to sign up for our mailing list.

A reader requested review of the Decision Moose asset allocation framework. Decision Moose is “an automated stock, bond, and gold momentum model developed in 1989. Index Moose uses technical analysis and exchange traded index funds (ETFs) to track global investment flows in the Americas, Europe and Asia, and to generate a market timing signal.” The… Keep Reading

Is the conventional wisdom that exchange-traded funds (ETF) are efficient, low-cost alternatives to mutual funds correct? In their September 2019 paper entitled “The Performance of Exchange-Traded Funds”, David Blitz and Milan Vidojevic evaluate the performance of a comprehensive, survivorship bias-free sample of U.S. equity ETFs. They first divide the sample into three groups: (1) broad… Keep Reading

“Stock Size and Excess Stock Portfolio Growth” finds that an equal-weighted portfolio of the (each day) 1,000 largest U.S. stocks beats its market capitalization-weighted counterpart by about 2% per year. However, the underlying research does not account for portfolio reformation/rebalancing costs and may not be representative of other stock universes. Do exchange-traded funds (ETF) that… Keep Reading

Will equity funds “managed” by artificial intelligence (AI) outperform human investors? To investigate, we consider the performance of AI Powered Equity ETF (AIEQ), which “seeks long-term capital appreciation within risk constraints commensurate with broad market US equity indices.” Per the offeror, the EquBot model supporting AIEQ: “…leverages IBM’s Watson AI to conduct an objective, fundamental analysis… Keep Reading

How can investment strategy researchers best address the randomness inherent in market data and the ability of investors/markets to adapt to changing conditions? In his September 2019 paper entitled “Tactical Investment Algorithms”, Marcos Lopez de Prado reviews three methods for testing the performance of an investment rule: Walk-forward (WF) tests a rule against an actual… Keep Reading